


Tied You With Your Flaxen Hair

by rosekay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Episode Related, Episode: s02e20 What Is and What Should Never Be, F/M, M/M, Season/Series 02, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:20:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The other Sam considers his brother. Same song, different key. A take the universe from 2x20 "What Is and What Should Never Be."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tied You With Your Flaxen Hair

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ in 2007.

 

There are stories that wind around arms, lazily, eagerly, feeding into each other, down corded tendons and thin torso, curving onto hips and thighs and naked sex. They are thicker around the face, lines moving easily, informed by blood, salt and thick, and dreams, thicker still. Burnt glass and a flame, trapped, glow from the eyes, but they're only what other eyes can see.

 

 

Sam is six years old. It will be another ten or more before his bones stretch and point thin boy's skin and he arches out over his brother and father and mother. For now he's _geek_ and _chubby_ , little boy with snot on his upper lip and a scrape on his elbow that he picks at absent-mindedly.

His brother holds the toy just out of reach, skinny arms long, longer than Sam can even see, it seems, the mess of fur and bright bead eyes further than ceiling.

"Sammy, come on, come on! At least _try_! God, you're such a dork."

Dean has a shock of half gold hair that's darkened over the years to a soft, messy shade caught between fall and summer. It glints merrily in the light, with his white, white teeth and wind milling arms, holding everything away.

Sam's eyes itch. They're hot, prickly with something he has to wipe with a hand, and then the snot's running too, sticky on his skin, and the sun's too hot, his brother too bright in front of his eyes. In ten years, in twenty, he'll be able to snatch anything and everything out of Dean's hands, hold it out of reach, but not now, not yet. Now he has to whine and beg and threaten through the whistle of his missing teeth, still tender, avoid the sharpness of his brother's eyes when his face gets damp.

" _Please_ , please, come on. Dean!"

He sees the opportunity, scrambling on the couch.

"Shit, Sammy," Dean still claps a hand over his mouth when the word slips out, their father hanging in the back of his eyes, and maybe that's what does it, makes him too slow. Maybe if John Winchester hadn't learned manners from his momma, and discipline in Vietnam, hadn't scrubbed his sons' mouths with soap when they stepped out of line. But he did, and Dean did, so Sam stands up as high as he can, his feet slipping on the scratchy lace of the couch, high above his brother now. Later, he will remember falling before his feet ever left the couch.

Blood runs hot down his face. He can feel that, even though his head doesn't hurt that much, but Dean's in a panic, his voice choked, hands running frantically across Sam's face, and Sam, he can only cry, because he's already learned how to turn these things to an advantage. A few years on, it will become an old trick, one he's bored with, but now, it's enough, his little revenge and his genuine hurt, worth the stitches in the future, and his mother's worried face. Right now, he's feeling strangely warm toward his brother, whose panic looks real. Maybe Sam is recalling a snatch of memory as a child, when Dean bent down to the crib and gave his customary kiss with dry, soft lips and a child's whispered endearment, or maybe he's just reveling in his small victory for the day.

This is the first scar that Dean Winchester gives his brother.

 

 

Sam is seventeen. He started high school as Dean Winchester's kid brother, and it looks like that's the way he'll graduate.

He remembers being younger, gawkier, caught halfway between his old thick cheeks and new growth spurt, remembers Dean banging in through the doors cocky and handsome, sweet face and athlete's body, cigarette his stamp of coolness, alcohol sharp and lazy on his mouth. Ripe mouth that caught Sam's eyes when Dean swiped a thumb over his brother's lips, not quite swaying, but loose limbed and red faced. Everything part of Sam wanted to be, just to stand out a little more in he crowd beyond his grades (and maybe this is the moment when Leland Stanford Jr. gains another student), and everything he looks at with tight disdain to hold himself together.

He remembers Dean coming home, sweaty and breezily happy in his sweaty baseball uniform, white streaked dark with mud and sweat. His brother has always been too physical to Sam, has always smelled of masculinity and something both sweet and American (but that's for later, when he's studied these things, climbed the insides of his own head.) Their mother patted Dean on the head casually, her fingers slipping through damp spikes of hair, the gel long washed out by exertion and sun and dust, Dean's face, red and glowing beneath her hand as she set out the sandwich for him. Sam remembers watching the milk, white at the corners of his brother's mouth, Dean's distorted cheeks as he chewed with abandon, crumbs flying. He imagined then he could hear the meat being torn to pieces between white teeth, the undignified sounds of consumption, careless and too much, like thunder in his ears. And right then he thought, _not me, not me, never me._

Rachel once invited him shyly to her bat-mitzvah, the invitation a little damp when Sam touched it, as if she'd clutched it nervously for hours in damp hands, anxious brand of each finger dark on the lavender paper. She was smart, funny, more assured than the other girls in eighth grade, but she had a metal cage of braces around her teeth and inelegant frames blowing up her eyes to comical size.

"She's a dog, little brother," Dean crowed to him gleefully when Sam waved goodbye (and there's another moment for Stanford, for saying goodbye to Lawrence, to Dean; Sam will think of it as exchanging the corn fields for the sea, and even later, will be embarrassed about his own awkward poetry, tumbling about in his head, at eighteen, at twenty two, at forty.)

Now though, at seventeen, her teeth are suburban white and suburban straight. She smells like half expensive perfume, not her mother's. The freckles that had gotten her stupid nicknames when they were younger are instead charming across the bridge of her noise, another little scatter across her collarbones, sharp, and her shoulders, gently sloping, pale and tempting above the deep olive cut of her gown. Sam has watched her glasses grow thinner and more chic over the years, and tonight, they've disappeared altogether, as if just succumbing to that natural progress. In contacts, her eyes look clear cut and green, striking against the dark bounce of her curls (they used to be thick, impenetrable frizz, blocking teachers and blackboards, but now they're tamed and lovely). He's turned on by the flash of her throat, her shoulders, her skinny wrist pale and veined inside the corsage he'd carefully picked out and refrigerated. He's in love, madly in love, with the shiny darkness of her hair, so carefully arranged and wild all at once (after tonight, Sam will go for blondes, but he doesn't know that yet). She's beautiful. She's amazing. He's never been happier in his life.

"Damn," Dean whispers in his ear, leaning too close. He's already had a beer or two tonight. Sam can tell.

His brother is dressed in old jeans worn threadbare across the thighs, his forearms brown and bare as he crosses them over the stretch of one of his obnoxious band shirts. His lashes – the girls always loved those – curl dark and sweet across his cheekbones, bitten red lips and big eyes offset by the stubble he cultivates so effortlessly (Sam has tried and tried and tried – now he knows just to shave – even years later, he won't keep a beard). Dean's probably got a good buzz going already, something stupid ready to fly out of his mouth, but he makes Sam feel awkward and stupidly underdressed in his tuxedo, the money he so painfully saved.

"Come on," he says quickly to Rachel, after Mom's done with the pictures, and Dad's given him a pat on the back (John left the condom conversation to Dean, who handled it with his usual grace, none at all). But it's too late. Rachel's close enough to have grown up with the ghost of Dean Winchester like every other girl at their school, and for all her smarts, she's still got a girl's fluttering stomach and eyes that will shift from brother to brother (she'll regret this later, but she doesn't anticipate it any better than Sam).

Sam watches her pulse point, delicate on her neck, watches it and imagines it quickening for his brother (it probably is). The bitterness in the back of his throat makes him want to hurl. Dean's grin makes his teeth hurt, so he steers her out the door as quickly as he can without seeming to make a scene, his brother's smile hot on his back.

 

 

Sam is seventeen. The first thing he sees is the corsage he'd gotten because he remembers picking it out. Its colors (white, spray of yellow) are already emblazoned in his head.

He hears them before he even sees the corsage, Rachel's soft sex panicked gasps, just like he imagined, little swallow's voice, slap of flesh riding under it, Dean's deeper moans, open mouthed, like someone having sex on TV, heaving rhythm. That he's far more familiar with.

Dean's back is to him, bare, muscles moving smoothly. His pants hang awkwardly below his ass, around his thighs, shoved there on a half thought. Sam watches his brother thrust forward, sees the pale curl of Rachel's leg moving against denim and coarse thigh, hears her little moan. His stomach feels tight, his dick stupidly hard against his thigh, probably visible beneath the line of the pants. He thinks about how ugly sex is, how awkward the collection of limbs and fluids and grunts (and he cannot stop looking at the long, sweaty curve of his brother's back, his brother's ass, moving in and out of Rachel, sweet Rachel, who spreads and moans, short sharp rhythm that goes straight to Sam's bitterest parts, his bitterest and his lowest).

His feet are sore because his shoes don't quite fit right (always growing, Sam, Jesus, when you gonna stop?) There are hands at his side, but they don't feel like his own, numb and detached, fingers floating in the air, a thing apart, sharp and white knuckled.

It takes them awhile to notice him, and it's Dean who turns first, even though he's facing the opposite way. He jumps, still tight in Rachel, the slick joining of their bodies hidden by Dean's bare torso and the fabric of her gown, but Sam can hear it, damp flesh and certain motion.

"Jesus, Sam, how long you been there?"

He actually sounds half accusing, though the guilt is already there in his voice (it will stay there for many years, curling bright around all of Dean Winchester's little words and phrases, a sour aside to everything that comes of his mouth – he will know this, maybe dampen it with alcohol and sweet girls' cunts, but they will always taste a little like his brother's surprise).

"I – "

Sam is lost for words for nearly the first time in his life (and he will resolve, one part of him, this one moment, never to let this happen again – maybe he will argue in a wood paneled room in an expensive suit, before stony faces, waiting breaths, and he will stumble, just once, a little pause, huff of uncertain air, and in _that_ moment, he will think of his brother, far away).

"Sam, Sam."

Rachel's voice is thick with tears, and she tries to draw her legs together, as if searching for some semblance of modesty, her gown, the one that had been so beautiful to Sam only hours ago, falling back over those pale legs, not for Sam, for his brother. Dean is pulling up his pants with one hand, fingers working at zipper, at belt, tucking himself back into place as Rachel straightens beside him, their faces red.

It's Sam's silence that undoes Rachel, her curls already frizzing after her exertions and the long night, her dress hanging on her askew. She's off with an unsteady click of heels and one dramatic swipe of her tears that smears one hand dark with the makeup that had made her eyes so green and bright. Sam remembers her old glasses for a second, and feels as if he's lost something important.

Then it's just his brother standing there, reddening marks at his throat, his lips swollen, hair flat and damp against his head. He hunches in on himself a little, not typical, that regret already sour and strong his tongue, the taste that will never leave.

"Sam," he begins, and Sam can hear the litany already, the stumbling conversation, touched with beer and disconnected grace notes of explanation, of half apology. He can see it twenty years from now, the crinkles around Dean's eyes maybe a little deeper, that mouth more worn with age, a little gut to hang over the freshly pulled up jeans and a brush of gray at his sweaty temples. He can see the veins that the alcohol will bring out, the thick rasp of stubble that will become habit rather than exception. He can hear the rumble of their father's voice untamed by their mother's, smell that sour regret (Sam will not know it for regret – he'll think it's only beer and whiskey and whatever else Dean has moved on to by then). He hopes there will be no woman in the picture, no child to bear that burden.

A teacher, maybe touched with whimsy, had once said Sam had a touch, a brightness to his eyes. She didn't really mean anything. The words didn't really mean anything, and they do not now, but Sam sees all this, and he draws a shaky breath that spirals down from his neck to his fingertips, the cut of his hips, his confused dick, still full and a little hard from thoughts of Rachel (from that sight of his brother's moving back, but he will not think of this, he can't).

Dean is talking, because it comes easily to him, meaningless words and a careless smile. Sam still feels awkward in his rented tux, the lapels limp on either side of his jaw, the pants inadequate, this little mask of formality nothing to his brother in jeans and a smile.

Dean is very drunk.

Sam realizes this when he draws closer, can smell it. He wonders that Rachel didn't notice, or maybe she'd been too far-gone too, her sight wavering between brothers, and settling on the one she'd already drawn up in her head. His brother's cheeks are flushed, even his limbs a little reddened, big hands corded with veins, full of Jack and spiked punch and whatever he'd managed to sneak here.

Sam is seventeen. Four years ago, he watched his brother strip out of his baseball uniform, swearing and asking for a beer, and the back of his neck grew hot while he stared at Dean's, red from the sun, pale line from his recent haircut. Four minutes again, he watched the sharp lines of his brother's shoulder blades moving beneath tan skin, the hidden line of his dick moving in Sam's prom date.

Dean's mouth is warm, a little slutty in the way he opens right up for Sam. Then he's pushing back (and it begins here, the pushing, the dragging, endless, or so Sam will later think). Pushing back, Sam, what the fuck. Sam.

Sam's not sure if he's even angry (he knows he is, but there's something more, something that stretches and hums at the very edges of his skin like his bones once did). In high school, he's fallen in with the college bound crowd, fully one of them now that he has that thick letter in hand, the heft of it comforting as Mom's warm glow and Dad's heavy pat of approval. Dean was tight mouthed though, the day it came. He isn't now, isn't paying attention to the sharpness of Sam's collar or the loafers in his closet, the sweaters bought to fit into a dream in his head. He mouths Sam's neck briefly, smelling vile and sweet and Dean. Then he's on his knees, the tuxedo's flimsy pants, who had been no match for Dean's smile against Rachel, now no barrier either to his brother's hands, still clever in their stuttered alcoholic phrasing.

Sam swallows years when he tips his head back, hands braced against the wall. His hips stutter forward when Dean licks just the tip of his cock, obscene noises from his mouth, the way he always breathes, heavy, when he's eating, when he's having sex, like he's breathing for someone else, for someone else to hear rather than for his own air. Sam will remember this. He will remember that his brother's mouth was hot and willing, that Dean did not choke once, even when Sam lost control, thrusting forward helplessly, sharp slash of thighs and hips. He will remember thinking that his brother has always hidden things, will remember wondering about the baseball team, its forbidden locker rooms and the easy camaraderie he used to watch with something like envy.

He will remember his brother's lashes pearled with Sam's own come, and the selfish twist of Dean's mouth, even swollen from the weight of Sam's dick. He will remember being hard, but not quite remember coming. And that guilt, that regret, so sour on Dean's tongue, it's on his brother's cock now, written into the veins and the steel soft heat, the soft crinkled weight of his balls.

Sam does not know this now, but years later, when he fucks more girls (not Rachel), hips driving forward, their hands on his back, curled over his shoulders, he will drive forward and moan, remembering heat and his brother, and nonsensically, something sour.

 

 

Sam is twenty, and Jess is a pretty girl in his art history class. When she stands, she's as tall as his brother, and Sam steps back, a little surprised.

He kissed a girl in a thin Polo dress his first weekend at Stanford, tradition out on the Quad. Later, Jess will ask, was she wearing boat shoes? Did she kiss the prep into you? And Sam will laugh and shake his head, because that was all in him before, everything that made his brother's head turn, his brother whom he hasn't really spoken to since he left. They made an art out of avoided glances over the dinner table, until his mother subsided in her attempts, and even their father's stormy orders ceased in the face of both his sons' stubborn silence.

Sam goes to class in shirts he picks out carefully, nice slacks and the right sunglasses. He accumulates jackets and hair gel and a certain air of entitlement. He studies ethics in class and drinks it out of himself over the weekends. His determination at the library is watched carefully by Jess, who soothes him with a kiss to the jaw, a wide palm between his legs, wicked little glint in her eyes, ringed by mascara like Rachel Nay's, no hiccupped sob, no smear on the hand as it (she) runs.

Chris Cooper barely tops Jess in height, but he's got a cocky assurance to him that appeals to Sam, a closet full of blazers and money, cufflinks that glitter from his sleeves, customary hotels all over the world that know his family's name. He keeps his hair short. It flatters his square jaw and even features. He has shaded eyes that can't decide on a color and a full mouth that just won't stop. There are no half there conversations with Chris, broken up by alcohol and old resentment (when Chris offers to accompany him to a Scholars dinner, Sam will remember the uncomfortable scritch of his graduation grown, will remember his father's grizzled smile, his mother's loose hair, beautiful in the sunlight, and the empty space where his brother might been – he will think of the bitterness he tasted instead, and now he stands with Chris Cooper, who has dark hair, green eyes (today, in the bright sunlight) and a bitten pink mouth, stands with Chris, his cock still sour from years of old regret and that bitterness in his mouth).

They walk down Galvez together when the sun is nice, handily sketching out Proust, because Chris has never had a problem with length, and Ginsburg, because Chris' mother is a granola Jewish lobbyist whose fancy name is the product of Ellis Island rather than any European estate, and she affectionately lets RBG roll off her tongue like so much water. So Sam and Chris do the same, their collars comfortably sharp and up in the sun, a sense of entitlement that's still new to Sam (in a few years, he will wear it more easily, but never with the ease of a native; in a few years, he will wonder if there are natives at all).

Chris' mouth is not his brother's, but he opens up just as easily, no push back at all.

 

 

Sam is twenty at Thanksgiving. Mom tries to make small talk over turkey, and has barely made any headway by the last lick of pumpkin pie. The weather is crisp outside, the old house warm where they sit, but he and Dean do not look at each other. They do not talk. They do not lie, not yet.

Later, Dean will do that, lie, with his mouth and clever tongue, with his fingers and hips and his held back teeth.

Dean is working full time at the garage now, his own little apartment not from their old house. Sam cannot imagine how anyone could be content with that. Their mother and father had won this nice house for them, had worked to save up tuition money and fees. Sam was walking on top of those things, sailing through difficult courses, on his way to something bigger, something he can talk about to his own children.

Dean looks up at him warily from where he rests easily on his knees, cheek at Sam's hip, fingers on Sam's thigh. He is very carefully scrubbed pink for the holiday dinner, but Sam can imagine the grease that might smudge his face, blur the sharp edge of a jaw line. He can imagine the smell of beer that might become permanent in a few ears, and rough, square hands of a working man, the stifling sense of never leaving the nest, trapped in Lawrence, in Kansas, in their parents' lap forever. He can imagine it, but he can never understand it (and maybe he never will: Sam's eyes will be opened, but he can't be sure).

Later, Sam will stare at his near empty account, and almost _feel_ the slide of the card from his hands, though that's not what happened (Dean took it from his wallet, nestled in his jeans by the back pantry, where they usually told their lies to each other, with spit and naked skin).

"Hey, hey," Dean's voice will be infused with the kind of cheerful abandon he's always conjured up so easily. "We're brothers, right? No big deal."

His eyes will say, are you paying up, Sam?

And Sam's mouth will tighten. I don't know. Yes. Yes.

 

 

Sam is twenty-two at Halloween. He's been looking at gold and platinum and diamonds, things that glitter around slender fingers, that bind and love and warm him when he looks.

"Yeah, they're proud," he answers at the party, as Jess sits in his lap, unreasonably gorgeous in her ridiculous outfit, long legs bared for everyone and soft lips just for him.

The kiss holds him there, and he forgets other things.

"Crash and burn," she murmurs, drawing his hand to the hole in her stockings, rubbing the tender patch of skin there.

He loses his nerve, but not that transient joy that glowed when he looked.

 

 

He is twenty-three at Christmas. Mom is happy, he can tell. And Carmen really is a nice girl. He remembers her name from a phone conversation months ago, but he hardly even thought of it then. She's small and delicately made, with dark hair that snakes happily around Dean's arm when he leans in to press a kiss to her cheek.

His brother glows, even as he downs too many glasses of wine. It's only gotten worse since Dad passed, but Dean has never taken loss well.

When they lie to each other again, it's as if Dean is swallowing all the words they'll never say with every pulse, and later, his brother's cock, hard, red, nestled between his legs, Sam can't stop the sounds that come from his mouth, even though their mother is so close. They don't talk about taboos or sin or we should stop. They don't talk at all, every phrase and apology and insult too wrapped up in skin and sweat, that old bitterness and sour regret swapping between them, flavors that will last them an age.

Sam thinks about Dean's fingers, dirty from grease, his unschooled mouth and his crappy beer, his low expectations and strange content. He catalogues it all in his head, and the moment it lines up with Jess' bright ambition, her long hair, their mother's hair, and her obvious brilliance, the moment he can touch the two of them together, he comes, muscles rippling around his brother's moving cock.

 

 

He is twenty-four in the spring, and he does not lose his nerve. Jess comes all over his face, slicking his nose, cheeks, lips, moaning _yes, yes, oh God, yes, of course._

Later she frowns at him, surprised at his dirty trick. She expected flowers and champagne, didn't you know? When Sam starts to panic, she drags him into another kiss, a sweet one, and he knows everything is fine.

He looks forward to seeing his mother again, but he's nervous too on the flight home, packing clothes and then repacking. Jess, this ring, it means a new family, a clean break. It's been a sweet thing in his mouth for years, but the bitterness of old is still there (Sam will never quite figure this out).

Dean is sitting on the steps when he pulls up, beer in hand, an idyllic smile dancing across worn, familiar features. He looks carelessly, unfairly happy. Sam is on edge the instant his foot touches pavement.

His brother has always liked Jess, but in a stupid, crude way that would have had Sam swinging at anyone else. The embrace seems artless though, the embrace of a child (and this is another one of Dean's gifts, one he will keep), something determined and relieved about it that seems utterly foreign.

He studies Dean's jeans and thin t-shirt, hardly changed from the ones he'd worn while fucking Rachel Nay, while Sam is no longer gawky and awkward in someone else's tuxedo, but in his own jacket, his own clothes, his own car, his own beautiful girlfriend – fiancée – on his arm, glowing in the Kansas light, closing her eyes to the breeze.

 

 

Dean's eager joy disturbs him more than scowls and betrayal ever have. He looks at everything with a sort of naked pleasure that does not suit him. At dinner, he stared at Mom as if seeing her for the first time. Then his eyes strayed to Sam and Jess, and Sam noticed that Carmen had to try for his attention. He wonders, but he's not overly concerned. Beer makes his brother happy, sometimes overly so.

"Just want you to be happy, Sammy."

Sam-my. Two syllables, but they shake him, make him feel strange in his nice clothes and his hair, here, in his old house. He watches his brother flinch, once, twice, three times, when his armor used to be solid. They never talked. They only told lies. He wonders what Dean wants, why he wants to change the arrangement.

The hand on his arm is strangely strong, each finger a brand through his shirt (maybe he's wondering too about grease stains again, because somewhere in Sam's head, his brother breathes the stuff, on his knees).

"I've never been hunting in my life, Dean."

 

 

Their mother is off limits. It's always been agreed upon, and this is real anger in Sam's shoulders, real disappointment. He can see the grin start up in Dean's face (he's seen this grin too many times over the years), the old easy attempt at camaraderie that isn't there, at charm taken out of thin air.

But it doesn't stop there.

"Tell Mom I love her, ok?"

The apology sounds like the truest thing he's ever heard from his brother's mouth, no lie, no touch of anything but words, words they've swallowed against each other for years. It's a surprise, and almost a pain, because Dean's face is so painfully open. Sam is seeing something else, someone else, in quiet words (Dean has rarely been quiet in his life). He holds the knife like he knows how to use it, and Sam is worried in spite of himself.

 

 

It's harder to remember things the closer they get. Sam's angry about the phone, shocked about the blood.

"A creature, and I have to hunt it."

Dean's child's charm, child's determination, coming out again, his old trick. But this sounds dangerous, unstable. He's afraid for his brother, and maybe he's sentimental (Sam will treasure being sentimental years later, remember it fondly), but he remembers kinder things now, the way Dean's selfishness occasionally gave way to a gentle care taking. He can taste Lucky Charms in his mouth (his four year old self can, and later, when he's much older, he will remember that, remember that and want to keep it). He has to insist, but he doesn't know why.

The answer surprises him when it comes (he will laugh at himself later over this).

We're brothers. We're still brothers.

When the knife goes in, he starts.

 

 

Another Sam will cradle his brother's cheeks, his heart in his throat, hard breaths, will look at the ashen shade, the open eyes, and feel something appalling unfurl in his stomach, the kind of sick terror he's felt too much.

He will say, "Dean, Dean, I thought I lost you," and sag forward in relief when there's a real answer.

He will feed his brother when he looks pale, offer him a shoulder when he needs to talk.

And another Dean will say, with wondering eyes, "She was so beautiful, Sam, you don't know. She was so – "

 

 

He wakes up thinking Jess and Mom are there, golden haired in the dark warehouse where something actually crept (Dean was telling the truth, the truth, still a surprise). Jess and Mom and Carmen, arrayed in pretty clothes, but they're not. Maybe he's going as crazy as Dean.

Dean, who's slumped over on the floor. Sam shakes off his own dizziness. He can't even remember properly what happened at all. There are pleas and curses dancing around in his head , and Dean's mouth, ripe as it has always been, but ripe with blood. It's dark against his brother's chin, his chest, pooled on the warehouse floor. There are – there are _corpses_ around them, desiccated, dangling form the ceiling, crucified flesh thrust in his face.

The girl doesn't make it, but Dean pulls through by a hair, pale in his hospital bed, freckles dark on his face.

Sam is trying to remember things, but they don't seem right.

Dean pulled him out of a cave when he was ten and Sam six.

Dean shot a creature right in front of him when Sam was five and cold.

Dean always took the bed closet to the door, a motel door. They've never lived in a motel.

Dean put big hands around Sam's, guiding them around the familiar barrel. Easy, Sammy, easy. _I've never been hunting in my life._

Dean held him when he cried over Jess. She's not dead, not dead.

Dean against a wall, blood on his lips, their father between them.

Dean has been in a bed like this before (that isn't right. He hasn't. He never has). But he has, in a bed like this, and he said:

 

 

"You better take care of my car, Sammy, or I'll haunt your ass."

Sam hardly dares to speak, because his brother's voice is low, unused.

"Dean?"

Dean blinks at him, his mouth pulled tight in pain, face still that shaky pallor that has their mother crying outside.

"I – Sam – "

"Dean."

"What do you remember?"

 

 

They answer police questions quietly, and go back to their lives, Mom watching Dean with tired eyes, and Carmen twice as tense, her nurse's hands stroking his brother's back.

Jess tells him, "Sam, if you need to – take a semester – if you – "

He nods.

He's looking up death in strange places, newspapers marked out, tacked across his wall like a serial killer's playground. Dean doesn't remember a thing, the silver or the lamb's blood.

Sam has never felt more alone in the world, grimoires from the library in his hand instead of law books, and his brother weak and silent in his old house, running hands over pictures, barely a ghost for his family.

 

 

One day, Dean says, "Did I ever teach you how to shoot a gun?"

His eyes are sharp, clearer than they've been.

When Sam stares, he recoils, like he's scared, a wince on his features, hand at his chest.

"I mean, shit man, that sounds crazy, right? Am I – "

Sam can't hide the smile, the crippling relief.

 

 

It goes more quickly when they're together. There are avenues close to home.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

Mom has one hand on each of their cheeks, and the love that Sam suddenly feels is not about comfort and memories, but grief. He's surprised.

They nod, and she smiles uneasily.

The drive is short, but Dean's barely out of the hospital, still falls asleep, face against the window, breath smearing the glass, when they pull up to the house. Sam skates a finger across his brother's jaw line, remembering years of lies, and feeling a tenderness that's both familiar and alien.

Dean stirs, lazily, sleepily, lashes fluttering awake. When he looks at Sam, his eyes are lucid, soft.

They stay in the car, silent, the words not swallowed, but held like sacred things between them. It's different. It's a little scary, but Sam has learned not to be afraid of things in the dark.

The door opens, a woman who means business with her brows raised.

"Well, Sam and Dean," Missouri demands, "ain't you gonna come in?"

 

 

Sam has never cared for Dean's cock rock, but he has to admit that it's appropriate for the road. Dean bitches about his fancy clothes, his bourgeois tastes, his stupidly large lexicon, but he seems happier than Sam's ever seen him.

Sam never saw this while he was in school, but it's something new to learn, a world full of creatures and spirits and things left undone, and he's never been afraid of learning.

Dean taps out a rhythm on the steering wheel, the wind ruffling his hair, sun chasing away the hospital pallor. He'd relieved Sam of the keys as soon as he could drive. He grins now at Sam, the sun in his face, years of things erased between them.

The road curves out ahead like a promise. Sam's not sure exactly what they're remembering. At night he dreams of blue lines over skin, stories fed in blood. He dreams of something bitter on his tongue and something sour on his cock, but daylight brings sun and road, wind and dust, his brother's unlined face.

They chase shadows now, and old souls, things bigger than their old petty normalcies, or maybe smaller, but built of unsaid words and half shaped apologies. The rush of discovering something new has them pressed skin to skin. Sam thinks, we're brothers.

 

 

He had asked more questions once, demanded more, but these days, he's tired of that strange old dance of lies, cloistered in dark corners and old houses, lies of touch and taste and sour skin that swallowed up whole intimacies, whole histories.

These days, they chase horizons, and Sam's fine with that.

 

 


End file.
